Tattoos
by My Ships
Summary: What happens when Pete and Myka wake up on a couch together in an unknown house?


Yawning, he woke up and stretched his arm out, hitting somebody next to him. Opening his eyes he stared on in disbelief at his partner who was started to shift.

"Myka," Pete said, his voice wavering. He couldn't tell whether he was saying her voice in a question or if he was just desperate to get her attention, but it didn't matter because she opened her eyes.

"Pete?" Myka asked, wondering why she was on a couch with Pete and not knowing where they were. "Where the hell are we?"

"I-I don't know," Pete responded, looking around and having no idea, whatsoever, of what happened. He looked back at his partner and looked at her bare upper arm. "Holy crap, Mykes!"

"What? What's 'holy crap'?" Myka asked, thoroughly worried.

"I didn't know that you liked tattoos... I wouldn't put it past you or anything though," he told her, mumbling on. "But a tattoo with the Warehouse 13 on it, in big letters? Nah-uh. That is not something that strikes me as 'Myka'."

"Tattoo?" Myka asked, looking at her partner quizzically.

"Yeah, no joke. Look at your arm," he pointed.

"Oh my God... Pete... What did you do?" Myka accused, rubbing her arm. She looked at her arm and then back up at Pete.

"I didn't do anything! I'll admit, it's usually me, but this time it isn't," Pete swore.

"Why do you have one too?" Myka asked, gesturing to her partner's arm.

"Don't mess with me, Mykes," Pete said, laughing slightly.

"I'm not messing with you. Look at your arm, Pete," Myka stated firmly.

When Pete pulled up his shirt sleeve a wee bit to see the rest of the tattoo his mouth dropped open.

At first Myka didn't know how Pete would act. Would he be mad? Would he be disappointed? Would he be fearful that it would be an artifact that would almost kill him, yet again? Would he still be hooked on the fact that he and Myka were sleeping on a couch together?

Pete's expression, at first stony, turned into excitement. "We have matching tattoos!" he screamed like a girl with her best friend or like a little kid.

"This is not cool though, Pete. Remember that?" He nodded his head and, although Myka wasn't exactly convinced, she had so much spinning around in her mind at the time that it didn't matter what Pete was thinking. "We're going to get to the bottom of this. Alright?" Again, Pete nodded his head absentmindedly. "Are you even listening to me?!" Myka half asked, half yelled.

Right then and there they heard footsteps and then a slight scream. "Honey!" the woman's voice called. "Do you know this couple?"

Myka got up and pulled the back of her shirt down over her pants. "Uh, hi. Hello. We actually aren't a couple. He's my partner... We're Secret Service," Myka smiled. The woman just nodded, bearing the tiniest of smiles. Again she called for the other person, probably a man such as her husband or her boyfriend. "Pete," Myka whispered to her partner while looking at him, "Flip her your badge."

Pete searched his pockets. "I can't find it," he shrugged.

"What do you mean you can't find it?" Myka started to argue. Remembering that the woman was just staring at the two, waiting for the man to come, Myka flashed her a small smile and let out a little sigh that came out like a quiet laugh.

"I mean," Pete started, enunciating his words, "I can't find it. What do you think I meant?" Pete asked with some sass, obviously annoyed, not so much at Myka but at himself for losing his badge.

Myka started a conversation with the woman and the man, who had just come to the room. She wanted to distract them while Pete rummaged around, trying to find the badges.

"Now where's that little biatch?" Pete asked himself in a hushed voice that was almost even inaudible to him.

He found Myka's jacket, along with his own, and checked inside all of the pockets.

When he couldn't find the badges, he looked down, shook his head, and prayed that Myka wouldn't get too angry.

He came up to his partner and the couple just in time to overhear the man say, "Oh yeah. They were at my tattoo parlor late last night and they seemed drunken. They were going on about 'artifacts' and a 'Warehouse 13' and they asked for me to give them tattoos with that name, place, or whatever it was on their arms. They seemed positive that they wanted the tattoos and even payed the money up front and they gave me these authentic Secret Service badges. Of course, my job is to give people tattoos and, already having the money from them, I decided that it would be alright to give them the 'tattoos'," he said, putting tattoos in air-quotation marks. "After they were done I realized that they would end up either hurting or even _killing_ themselves or somebody else in such a state, being as drunk as they were, so I took them here."

"There are drunk people in our apartment, Larry! That isn't alright! They could be dangerous and they may even have guns or something because they're claiming that they're Secret Service. But I don't think that agents should be going around getting drunk and getting huge meaningless tattoos, even when they're drunk."

"Babe... Babe, calm down. They passed out on the couch together as soon as I told them where they could sleep, I hadn't even folded it out yet. And they're not drunk anymore, look at them. Bright as day," the man said, matter-of-factly.

"But they're still saying that they're Secret Service agents and I'm not buying it. Larry, they're dangerous. And I wasn't kidding when I said that nor was I when I said that they probably had guns," the woman replied.

Pete and Myka glanced at each other, both with thoroughly worried expressions on their faces. They both realized that the woman was right. They did have guns and they could be considered dangerous or a threat. If the couple called the police and the police found out about Warehouse 13 there would be an endless amount of possibilities, and almost all of those possibilities would be bad ones.

"This isn't just a charade, I can assure you two. We are both Secret Service agents," Myka nodded her head.

"Can we please have our badges back now?" Pete asked Larry.

Myka punched Pete, lightly, in the shoulder because he was acting needy and whiny.

"I'm going to call the police," the woman simply stated as she walked into the kitchen.

"Wait!" Myka called, grabbing onto the woman's arm.

"Let go of me," she exclaimed, trying to pull her arm free, but Myka was firm and kept the woman there.

"There's no reason to call the police, mam," Myka told the woman, staring into her eyes. "Because there's a perfectly good explanation as to why we were acting the way we were last night."

"There is?" Pete and the woman asked in perfect unison.

"Yes, Pete. There is," Myka said, under gritted teeth. Turning back to the woman, Myka started lying. "We were at a party where these men, who were escaped convicts were, and we needed to catch them before they murdered or robbed anyone else. The party was a masquerade ball," Myka said, looking at Pete, wondering if he thought that she was doing a good job at lying. Pete gave her a thumbs up and a smile which indicated that he was going to burst out laughing at any minute. "We were given drinks by the bartender who was apparently one of the convicts. He drugged our drinks more than they should have been. Pete, here," Myka said, pointing to her partner, "Started feeling like something bad was going to happen and I noticed that my drink smelled stronger than it should have, I'd even consider the smell a little funny. Neither of us really mentioned anything to each other, except for our subtle hints. We drank our glasses and we started looking around again, that's when the drugs started to kick in. We were dizzy and we walked out of the ball in the state that Larry found us in. We'd heard of a tattoo parlor and we didn't think about any of the consequences that would come for us if we got tattoos. But we decided that it was the only way to catch the escapees. Keep in mind that we were drugged and we weren't completely sane. When we got to Larry's tattoo parlor we got these tattoos, seeing how Warehouse 13 has something to do with the escaped convicts."

At some point during that paragraph, Larry came back in and handed Pete the badges. After that, Pete gave Myka her badge.

"So you see, there's no reason, whatsoever, that you need to call the police," Pete said, trying to back Myka up.

"That's strange..." the woman pondered. "I don't remember there being any masquerade ball in the city. Do you, Larry?"

Larry puffed a breath of air out of his mouth, not wanting to answer. It was between Pete, Myka, and the woman and he didn't believe that he should have been included in their conversation.

"It was in the next city over," Myka responded.

"Yeah," Pete said, again trying to back his partner up. "And it was filled with mostly policeman, FBI, and Secret Service agents. When we were on our way to the tattoo place we got a call from a friend of ours, in the FBI, and he said that they snagged the guys. Luckily, we kept it on the down low. Unless you were at the party, you wouldn't know anything about it."

"So please don't tell anybody about the mission. It needs to be kept a secret otherwise people will start to worry and think twice about the people, such as us, that are here to protect them," Myka pleaded.

The woman looked at the man and then back at the agents. Letting out a heavy sigh she caved in. "Nobody will know unless you stay here any longer so run along," she shooed them.

"Babe, they haven't had breakfast yet. We should at least feed them," Larry protested.

"Nah, it's fine. Me and Mykes can go eat breakfast at a diner or a fast food place, we don't need to take any more of your time."

Pete picked up his jacket and slipped the gun, which Myka had in her pocket, into his so the couple wouldn't notice it. He handed Myka's jacket to her and she thanked him in return.

As they started walking to the door, Myka turned around to ask one last thing. "Larry, why did you put air-quotes around the word tattoos earlier?"

"Oh, right. That's because they weren't real tattoos," he answered, shrugging his shoulders.

"You gave us temporary tattoos?" she asked, quizzically.

"Hennas... Henna tattoos," he explained.

"How long will it take for them to come off?"

"It could take days, weeks, or possibly even months! Depends on how much you shower and how much you try to scrub it off."

"Okay. Thank you for your time Larry and... I don't believe that I have your name, Ms.?" Myka inquired.

"And I don't believe that my name is any of your business," the woman answered harshly.

Myka, stunned and slightly hurt by the coldness lacing the woman's voice, said, "Well, bye then. Have a great day, you two!"

Pete and Myka walked outside, putting their jackets on.

"It's freezing out here!" Pete exclaimed loudly to Myka as they started walking away from the house.

"It's not as 'freezing' as it could be," Myka shrugged, laughing at how unaccustomed Pete was to the snow and coldness.

Pete chuckled along with her. "So... Do you think that they believed the story?"

"No. Not at all. But I hope that that woman was true to her words and that she won't tell anybody," Myka said.

"So do I." Then Pete nudged Myka in the shoulder where she had her henna tattoo. "How long do you plan on keeping the henna on?"

"I don't know. It's big and obvious so I want to take it off soon, but, at the same time, I feel kind of rebellious. Y'know?"

Pete laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"What you said. I like how you think that wearing a henna is rebellious."

"Oh," Myka let out a tiny laugh too. "How long do you think you'll keep it on?"

"Until it wears off on it's own," Pete said, not really caring when it came off.

"We should have asked for directions to the nearest place to eat," Myka said.

"Tell me about it," Pete agreed. "But when I'm hungry, I'll always find a way."

Sure enough, within the next fifteen to twenty minutes, they found a family-run diner which had the slogan, "Breakfast all day, every day."

When they walked inside, they felt the warmth rising from within them.

They walked to a table and sat down. When nobody came out to get the some drinks or to take their orders, they started talking about what happened.

"What do you think happened last night?" Pete asked.

"I don't know. I can usually remember things, but right now I can't. All I can remember is a..." Myka started but stopped.

"A what, Mykes?" She shook her head and told him never mind. "No, don't do that to me. I can handle it. Just tell me what you remember."

Myka looked down at her hands and she looked ashamed. "All I can remember is a... a bar, Pete." Myka now stared intently at her hands, fiddling with them and picking at her nails. Looking up and putting her hand over his she said, "I'm so sorry, Pete."

"No, no. It can't be," Pete said, shaking his head but not looking away from Myka's eyes.

"Yes it can be, Pete. I'm _really_ sorry." She put her other hand on top of his other hand.

"It has to be. It's the only explanation, but it can't be," Pete looked down at his arms.

"Pete-" Myka started, but he cut her off.

"No, Myka. You don't get it," he raged, pulling his hands out from under hers. She wanted to interrupt him, but she knew better. "I haven't drank in about seven, almost eight, years! I can't just forget that! This was a fail on my part and I'm going to go crazy again. And when I go crazy... I turn into a monster," Pete said, getting quieter with each word in the last sentence. He got up and walked toward the door. "And I'm afraid of that monster," he said, passing by Myka.

"Pete, you're not going to become a monster. I won't let it happen," Myka tried to assure her partner.

"They've tried. I've tried, women have tried. Hell, other men have even tried! But once I get started, I can't stop. It's an addiction. People may think that it's something that I do without thinking, but that's the worst part. I know what I'm doing with every drink. I know that I'm hurting myself. I know that I'm going to turn into the monster that I fear. I know that I won't be able to stop. But I have this instinct that makes me have to do it. It makes me have to go on, continue. Become that monster..."

By this time, Myka was already up and out of her seat. Once in front of Pete she looked at him, "It was our mistake, Pete. Not just yours. I drank too because we all know that if I hadn't drank none of this would have happened and I would have been able to remember all of this clearer." Myka gave a nervous laugh and stared at her partner.

She knew that it was a big risk and she had no idea what she was actually doing, but she leaned in.

Her arms slithered around his neck and she put their lips together. Rather abruptly, she pulled back, not letting any tongue contact happen between the two and not giving Pete the time he needed to react and know what was going on.

She turned away, walking toward the booth again. "I'm sorry," she said to him as she was almost out of hearing range. She sat down and waved for a waitress to come by and take her drink order.

"Pete!" Myka called after regaining her composure. "Want anything to drink?"

"I'll have some milk," he said.

The waitress wrote their orders in her little notebook and walked away.

"I thought you liked drinks like Pepsi or even Sprite," Myka said, casually.

"Well, yeah, I do. But they remind me too much of alcohol. Water's tasteless and milk seems just right. Besides, Pepsi and Sprite have a lot of caffeine and sugar and that seems gross to me right now," Pete shrugged.

"Says the man who's going to get a tall stack of pancakes with so much maple syrup all over them that it looks really unappetizing," Myka laughed.

"True, true," Pete laughed with Myka as the waitress came with their drinks.

When the waitress left to give them some time to decide on what they wanted, they promised that they would never speak of it again.


End file.
